More Than We Can Handle

Delivered October 7, 2012

Job 1:1; 2:1-10

I dislike spiritual clichés. Unfortunately there are a lot of them. As a pastor I hear them more than most people do. It is all I can do to bite my tongue and not contradict those who voice them. One saying I have heard many times. I am sure you have heard it; perhaps you even voiced it. “God never gives you more than you can handle.” Or alternately, “God will never give us more than we can bear.” I don’t believe it, and in a moment I will tell you why. 

For me it ranks right up there with other statements like “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Not so! Sometimes it makes you weaker! Another one is “I know exactly how you feel.” No you don’t! I have learned the hard way never to say that. People in my churches have gone through terrible things that I have not been through. I can imagine somewhat what they are going through, but there is no way I really know exactly how they feel. It is better not to say things like that, but instead just be with them in the pain. Unless of course you really have been through the same thing and therefore really do know how they feel. Then – and only then - you can say it. I think that God brings us through some things so that we can comfort others who are going through it. 

The Bible says, “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. 6 Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer.”

Another one is “Time heals all wounds.” No it doesn’t! Time helps heal some wounds somewhat in some people, but not all. Some wounds never completely heal. I think grief due to the death of one very close to us for many years never completely goes away. You just learn how to live with it.  But I want to get back to the statement that “God will never give you more than you can handle. I don’t believe that because God never promised that. When Christians say this with good intentions, I think they have in mind 1 Corinthians 10:13 which reads, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond that which you are able, but he will make with the temptation a way of escape in order for you to be able to endure.” That is true! God will never allow us to be tempted more than we can bear. That has to do with temptation to sin. But that is very different than saying that God will never give us more hardship or suffering than we can bear.

In fact there is a passage of scripture which says that sometimes God does give us more than we can bear. The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians: “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.” He says clearly there that it was more than he could bear. Then he goes on to tell us the reason why God sometimes gives us more than we can bear. “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.”  (2 Corinthians 1:8-10 ESV) God does give us more than we can bear, and the reason is so that we will not try to bear it alone, but will rely on God’s strength and not our own.

Paul talks about another occasion when God gave him more than he could bear in the same letter in 2 Corinthians 12. “7 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

God does give us more than we can bear! But never more than He can bear. Job is an example of a person who got much more than he could bear. Most of the book is Job telling us exactly that! People who say that God never gives people more than they can bear have never read the book of Job. And Job is who I want to talk about this morning. I want to say three things about what Job’s experience of suffering teaches us.

1. First is that bad things happen to good people. I know that Biblically speaking you can make a case that cannot call anyone good but God. Jesus said that. On one occasion someone came up to him and called him “Good teacher,” and Jesus responded by saying, “Why do you call me good. No one is good but God alone.’ I understand that in that sense there are no perfectly good people. But I am talking in relative terms here – the way most people use the term good.  There are bad people in this world, and there are good people.  I have known a lot of good people who have had bad things happen to them. Bad things happen to good people - spiritual religious people who have never done anybody any harm and who have gone a lot of good in the world. Sometimes the world dumps on them. Bad things happen to innocent people – to children who have never caused anybody any harm. Evil people sometimes do terribly evil things to innocent people.  Bad things do happen to good people.

Job is an example. The book of Job opens with the words: “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil.” This is the Bible’s way of saying he was a good man. But a lot of bad stuff happened to him. Chapter one tells us what happened. He had a large family – seven sons and three daughters. And he was wealthy – wealth earned by his own hands. Then in one day he lost everything. Raiders came and killed all his workers and stole all his possessions. Fire burned up what the thieves did not steal. Then a tornado struck the house where all of his kids were gathered together and killed them all. He lost all his family and all his possessions. But at least he had his health. That is another cliché that I don’t like. When bad things happen, people say, “Well at least you’ve got your health.” Well Job didn’t have his health either. If the loss of his children, his money and possessions were not enough, on top of that Job became very ill with painful boils that covered his whole body. Here was a good man who had everything, and suddenly he lost it all. Bad things happened to this good person.

Bad things happen to good people; that is what scripture teaches. In fact the Book of job directly contradicts the idea that God will protect religious people from bad things. So if you are using your faith as an insurance policy against trouble, then you are in for a surprise. That is called the hedge theory. It is voiced by Satan in Verse 9-11 “So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” The idea is that God puts a hedge of protection around his people so that really bad stuff won’t happen to us. The book of Job throws that idea out the window. God hands Job over to Satan with the only stipulation being not to touch his body. But later he takes away even that restriction with the only stipulation being that Satan cannot take his life. Which is not such a good stipulation when you think about it. Sometimes death is a blessing when it puts an end to suffering. There are some things worse than death. I think that is one cliché I do accept.

2. The second thing that Job’s suffering teaches us is that we cannot see behind the curtain of eternity to understand why bad things are happening to good people. We can trust that all things – even bad things - somehow work together for good - that somehow the sufferings and evil works together for a greater good and a higher purpose for God’s people.  Scripture does teach that. One of my favorite bible verses is Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”  I believe that, but we can’t see HOW it all fits together. In the Book of Job bad things happen to Job, but he does not understand why.

But the reader of the Book of Job is let in on the secret; we see what Job cannot see. The narrator of the story tells us that there is a contest going on between God and Satan. They are fighting over the soul of Job. Job I being tested.. Satan says that the only reason Job is good and worships and serves God is for the rewards he receives from God. God says “No, Job is good for entirely selfless reasons.” To prove who is right, God allows Satan to do terrible things to Job - killing his family, taking away everything he has, and inflicting him with a painful disease. This is all a test, but Job doesn’t know that. All Job knows is that a lot of bad stuff is happening to him all at once. This is the position we are in during this life. We see that bad stuff happening to us and those we love, but we can’t see behind the scenes; we can’t see why the bad is happening.

To be honest with you this whole scenario in this book is disturbing to me theologically. I don’t like the idea that humans are pawns in a heavenly wager between God and Satan, which is the way the Book of Job presents it. But one thing I do like about the book. It clearly teaches that there is evil and the suffering experienced by man is evil. Suffering is not right. God may allow suffering, but he does not cause it. It is evil that causes it. Satan is the personification of evil. The book of Job is basically saying that all these bad things that happen to this righteous man Job is caused by evil!

There is evil in the universe. Another cliché that I don’t like (if you need to hear another one) is that all people are intrinsically good. People will say, “There is good in everybody,”  “I believe in the essential goodness of humanity” or “I believe all people are basically good.” That is not my experience. My experience is that most people are decent, but some people are not. Some people are cruel and brutal and sadistic and do terrible things to innocent people. The only words strong enough to describe this are evil or sin. I don’t think you have to look further than the headlines of the daily paper to see the evidence of the sinfulness of man. G. K. Chesterton wrote that original sin is the only doctrine of Christian theology that can be empirically verified. I don’t know if I would go that far, but it seems like a lot of people are doing a good job in demonstrating it.

3. The third thing we can learn from this story of Job is how to respond when bad things happen to good people. One response is that of Job’s wife. As we read this story about Job we have to remember that all this is happening to Mrs. Job also. These are her kids who died; not just his. These are her possessions as well. Even though she does not have the physical affliction that Job had (as far as we know) she was his caregiver. She had to put up with his constant complaining. All the calamities happen to Job in the first two chapters of the book. The other 40 chapters are Job complaining about it.  In our passage we see how Mrs. Job responds to the suffering that came her way. 2:9 “Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” When bad things happen, some people respond like Job’s wife. They turn away from God. In My study of the New Atheist movement of this 21^st century, it seems to me that this theological problem of evil and suffering – called theodicy – is the chief argument that atheists have against God. Basically they say that any God that would allow such evil and suffering to happen in this world is not worthy of worship. So they reject God. It is not too strong to say that some of them curse God and die.

Another response to the suffering is acceptance. This is Job’s initial response in the first two chapters. It is described both in chapters 1 and 2. Chapter One ends with this response from Job. “20 Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” 22 In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.” Chapter Two ends with Job’s wife telling him to curse God and die, which is apparently her plan of action. But Job replies to her in verse 10 “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” So Job’s initial response is acceptance. And a lot of people are able to do this. They can in faith accept everything bad that happens in the world. But some of us are not built that way. And it turns out that Job is not built that way either. Even though this is his initial response, it is not his final response.

The third response to suffering – and this is the subject of most of the book of God  - is struggle. Job accepts his situation in faith until his three friends show up on the scene with their self-righteous platitudes. And apparently Job cannot stand clichés any more than I can. Because the whole rest of the book is Job arguing with all the pat answers that his friends give about why this is happening to him. Job fights and struggles and argues – and I love it. Because that is what I do. In the end of the book this struggle brings Job face to face with God. Job never gets an answer to his questions, but he meets God in the whirlwind – in the tempest of his struggle. That is the only answer. Job’s final response is in chapter 42 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. 6 Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” The only answer to why God sometimes gives us more than we can bear is God himself – an encounter with God. In God’s undeniable powerful presence our only response can be repentance and faith. God gives us more than we can handle in order to drive us into his arms and find there something deeper than answers. We find the living God.